Tables for Facilitating Sumner's Method at Sea

Abstract

The reforms which Sir William Thomson has effected or suggested in the art of navigation are neither few nor unimportant. His invention of deep-sea sound-ng by pianoforte wire, and his improvements in the construction of the mariner's compass, are specimens of what he has done in the instrumental part of the subject. In the book now before us he again comes forward as a nautical reformer, this time in another section of the field, that, namely, which treats of the calculations following on the astronomical observations of the sun or stars, which form part of the daily routine work of every navigator. Innocent as the title of the book ap pears, the general adoption of the method which it advocates would amount to little short of a revolution in nautical practice—a revolution which is urgently needed, and which would unquestionably be of immense advantage to sailors in more ways than one.

Tables for Facilitating Sumner's Method at Sea.

By Sir William Thomson, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, and Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cambridge. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1876.)